Teens Around the World

[mungerre]

I don't think the whole issue of changing meanings of the English language needs to span continents to have differences - for instance I drink pop, as compared to some people in that drink soda, soda pop or coke. I'm sure the word "pop" might horrify language purists.

This is a very diverse thread today, all starting from teenagers. Even just talking about teenagers seems to make us all scatterbrained

[thessh]

In Swedish, the years between 13 and 19 are: tretton, fjorton, femton, sexton, sjutton, arton and finally nitton.
Hence, teenager in Swedish is "tonåring" since they all end with "-ton".
"Åring" is the same ending as the English "ager".
And just like in English, twelwe is a little bit different; Tolv.

Lesson ended!

[digigrandma]

So, the Swedes also have a term for the teen years...

Thess, thank you for the Swedish lesson! My dear mother spoke Swedish so I love to hear the sounds of the Swedish language and I can almost hear you counting up to nitton.

Kelly, you started us out with a most interesting question. Look at all the information one little question spawned. I love how you think! And, Beckie, I love your comment about just talking about the teen years makes our minds scatter in different directions.

[MINIDEB]

Kelly this is too funny I never knew you were Cassie's big sis ...I'm a big sister too... did Cassie tag along when you were young(a teen) and getting into mischief.... my little brother aka Mickey tagged along ... parents didn't have a clue.... he could be bribed!!!!!Candy bars .... skating and he definitely was not a tattletale - tormented me just the other day re all the dumptrucks in dumptruck heaven.... that they were really there to clean up my basement.... told him about the 18 boxes out the door of scrapbooking stuff and he started singing 100 bottles of beer on the wall and changing it to boxes...so if your mugs big sis ... does that make you a bigger muggle too?

[mugsbigsis]

Beckie, you are so right. I live in a part of the country that calls it "pop." I grew up in TX so ordering in a resturaunt went something like this: Server: What would you like to drink? Me: Do you have coke? Server: Yes, we have Sprite, Coke, Dr Pepper, Mello Yellow . . . . :O)

Thess, Thanks for the lesson. So in Swedish, "ton" is our "teen" and is actually part of the number itself. Looks like Norwegian has the same sort of wording. I like that "Åring" is the same ending as the English "ager". Makes me feel like we are all connected somewhat in this roller coaster we call the "teen years." :O)

MINIDEB: Cassie did tag along some, but I always stayed in check . . . she was a talker (not to be confused with tattler). :O) As for your question about being a "bigger" muggle? Cassie is actually taller than I am, but I am older and wiser (10 years wiser to be exact). :O)

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by mugsbigsis

Beckie, you are so right. I live in a part of the country that calls it "pop." I grew up in TX so ordering in a resturaunt went something like this: Server: What would you like to drink? Me: Do you have coke? Server: Yes, we have Sprite, Coke, Dr Pepper, Mello Yellow . . . . :O)

That's how it was in the mid-Atlantic where I grew up. (Everything was Coke; they asked you what flavor.) It's pop for my husband, who grew up in Chicago. Soda for my parents, who grew up in Pennsylvania.

Down here in the South a shopping cart is a "buggy." That one still gets on my nerves, just because where I'm from, a buggy is usually attached to a couple of horses, up in the Amish country.

I actually took this survey when it came out.

Dialect Survey Results

You can see the choices for each question (with results and statistics) if you click each number individually. I found it fascinating.

[Cassie Jones (1gr8muggle)]

That's a very cool survey, Sarah.

[mugsbigsis]

OMGosh, Sarah, I'm going to have to show that to my husband. We've always teased each other about the way we say caramel (I use 2 syllables and he uses 3). I'm going to have to show him that the majority uses 2, but I don't dare show him that I was saying it "wrong" according to my state. lol

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by mugsbigsis

OMGosh, Sarah, I'm going to have to show that to my husband. We've always teased each other about the way we say caramel (I use 2 syllables and he uses 3). I'm going to have to show him that the majority uses 2, but I don't dare show him that I was saying it "wrong" according to my state. lol

It's laborious having to click on all the answers, but fun nonetheless. I've always said "care-a-mel," a parent's sister is called "ant," I say "root" instead of "rout" for "route" . . . I think when I took the survey, I landed right somewhere around western Pennsylvania/Ohio, which is where my parents grew up. I refuse to call a shopping cart a buggy; the strip between a sidewalk and the street is a median . . . on and on. I wish the questions were still up. I may click through them all and take the information out to re-create the survey.

[earlofoxford]

I grew up right here in Florida, and every carbonated drink was a cold drink -- or more specifically a col' drink.

[kikimama]

You're all in such a fun mood, loving these threads!

When I was young all fizzy juice was 'ginger', I do love language, endlessly fascinating, endlessly evolving.

I'd also like to apologise for some of the snobbish answers on the BBC article, for a couple I couldn't even work out what they were complaining about, but I do always take a shopping trolley round the supermarket.

[carollee]

Originally Posted by mugsbigsis

...We've always teased each other about the way we say caramel (I use 2 syllables and he uses 3). ...

That's just made my head spin round, how can you say caramel with 2 syllables. What do you do with that middle "a" ?? I need to click on that link, don't I?

As for another change - what we call lemonade down here is not what you call it in America, it would be the equivalent to your Sprite what we call lemonade. Lemonade is fizzy.

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by carollee

That's just made my head spin round, how can you say caramel with 2 syllables.

pronounced CAR-mal. Like camel with an r in it. :O) (I wonder if it even sounds the same with your accent, Carol?) heehee

[carollee]

But where did the middle A go? What did you do with it? You can't just diss the A, you know that don't you Kelly. ROFL

[thessh]

When I lived in the States for a while, the whole soda/pop/lemonade-thing had me very confused in the beginning... And on top of that, the mother in my first host family, called it "fizzy drinks", but said it so quickly I kept hearing "fuzzy"...

Here in Scandinavia, Swedes, Norwegians and Danes usually understand eachother pretty well. Finnish is a whole different matter and belongs to a whole different family of languages.

But the real confusion sets in when one word means TOTALLY different things in our vastly similar languages...

For example, "rolig" means "funny" for me here in Sweden, but to a Dane or a Norwegian "rolig" means "calm"...
In Sweden and Norway "frukost"(swe)/"frokost"(no) means "breakfast", but to a Dane it is "lunch"...

[home in ottawa]

Too funny, ladies! Interestingly, it is just these variations in language that caused many ethnic groups to be labelled less intelligent. For example in word association testing, "cup" didn't go with "saucer" because some of the test subjects only drank out of mugs and had never seen a saucer.

My dad was a Scott. I remember being mortified as a kid when he'd walk up the store "ail" (aisle - ile in Canada) to talk to the "clark" (clerk).

Then there is the whole "zed"/"zee" thing...In medicine we have debates about the spelling of esophagus or oesophagus. As we tend to abbreviate the name of a "transesopageal echo" as TEE in Canada and TOE in the UK, it can make for initial confusion with UK trained physicians. Then there is the whole cerVICal/cerVIcal debate, not to mention that it relates to two TOTALLY different parts of the body...

... and in French, mal au coeur (literally "sick at heart") means nauseated...

[PaulaSG]

This is fascinating

I've never heard anyone in the states call carbonated beverages fizzy drinks -- I've only heard that in Ireland! They also called them "minerals" - anybody else hear that one? My kids have to learn the difference between lemonade in the states and Ireland every time they go -- it still doesn't make sense to them

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by carollee

But where did the middle A go? What did you do with it? You can't just diss the A, you know that don't you Kelly. ROFL

Some of us doing this quite often (note I was the majority in the US). How do you pronounce the candied corn that is in Cracker Jacks? I don't know one single person that pronounces "caramel corn" with 3 syllables in "caramel."

My husband also pronounces clothes with the "th" sound to which I tease him mercilessly. Yes, I know it's there, but I was brought up saying it with no "th" sound and it just sounds ridiculous when he says it. :O)

[kikimama]

Wow, the more I read of this thread, the more confused I am. How can you say clothes without the 'th'??

[Lynn Grieveson]

And how can you say caramel WITHOUT three syllables????? :-)

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by Lynn Grieveson

And how can you say caramel WITHOUT three syllables????? :-)

Like this: Car-mal as in car-mal corn. Say it with me. . . car-mal. heehee.

I don't know about the clothes thing, Chrissy. I just never heard it said with the "th" sound until I met my husband. :O) We said it like the word, "close" as in close the door.

As for being confused, so am I . . . Weren't we suppose to be talking about teens?????

[maureenreynolds]

Teens don't say any of these things. They text.

btw, I think car-mals have a Kar-eh-mel flavor just like I say when I get a Mocha Kar-eh-mel Latte.

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by maureenreynolds

Teens don't say any of these things. They text.

Maureen, did you read the beginning of the thread. LOL Do you know what they might call "teens" in Spain or France or Germany? Help me out here.
I do so like your explanation for caramels. :O)

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by mugsbigsis

Like this: Car-mal as in car-mal corn. Say it with me. . . car-mal. heehee.

There's no way to get CAR-mal out of car-a-mel. It has three syllables. Or, in the deep South, five or six, depending on how hot it is, how much sangria someone has had to drink . . . well, you know.

As for "clothes," I've only ever heard it pronounced like "close" (long O, rhyming with clove), and it wasn't until about ten years ago that I started pronouncing "amphitheater" correctly, that is, AM-pfih-thea-ter, not AM-pih-thea-ter. Of course, that argument (as well as the e/oe debate and the a/ae "ay" or "aye" debate, which stem from transliterating from ancient Greek into Latin . . .) comes from whether or not you think the proper ancient pronunciation of the Greek phi is strictly a dental (fee or fie, like pie) or a labial like puh-fi. We had hours and hours of debate over this in my Homer class, as well as in my Virgil/Vergil class (those Brits and their crazy spellings!).

Because it's not orthopaedic in US medicine, it's orthopedic. And in the U.K. do they pronounce orthopaedic "or-tho-PIE-dik" or "or-tho-PAY-dic"? And paedobaptism pronounced "PIE-do-bap-tism," or "PAY-do-bap-tism"?

It's all just linguistic snobbery, really.

What gets stuck in my craw is when I hear that former Packers quarterback's name mispronounced. "Farve." IT IS NOT FARVE! It's Fav-ruh. I loved Ben Stiller having trouble with it in "There's Something About Mary." Brett Fav-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh.

Yeah. My soapbox. I'm up on it. I love languages and the study of dialects, and had I had the $$ to stay in college I probably would have wound up getting a graduate degree in linguistics. Chomsky and Rosenstock-Huessy fascinate me.

[mugsbigsis]

Originally Posted by dugarner

There's no way to get CAR-mal out of car-a-mel. It has three syllables. Or, in the deep South, five or six, depending on how hot it is, how much sangria someone has had to drink . . . well, you know.

OMGosh, crack me up. Love it! :O)

[kikimama]

Sarah, I'd pronounce it or-tho-pee-dic.

Like you say, it's all coming from very old languages that have changed. I'm fascinated by the idea that some of your 'americanisms' are actually old English which have stayed after being taken over there centuries ago, while our British English changed.

Coming from Glasgow I know I talk too fast, doubt I could live in the South lol, took ages to understand and be understood the one time I visited Baton Rouge lol, great accent though.

Still feel sorry for the 'th' missing from clothes, would never have considered it could be ignored lol.

Oh I so wish I could hear how you all talk! Doubt it would be anything like I imagine when I read threads.

[esther_a]

There are a whole host of word the Americans have dropped letters from - in some cases they are letters we pronounce like in "jewellery". Yes we say the "th" in clothes - just subtly. I revel in the greek letter combinations like the "oe" in oesophagus and ae in "encyclopaedia".
We had a friend visit from the USA about 20 years ago. He was craving "lemonade". We disappointed him by providing a lemon-flavored softdrink (sprite). We figured out what he wanted and directed him to "lemon cordial" in the supermarket. He wandered out, bottle in hand, took a great swig out of it. (Aussies here will know that cordial is concentrated and meant to be diluted with heaps of water before drinking.) He choked "No that's not what I was after either". It took some explaining!!